Meet Moira Villiard

We recently connected with Moira Villiard and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Moira, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
I don’t know that anyone ever really overcomes imposter syndrome. At the same time, I think there was a point very early on personally where I realized that most of the people I looked up to didn’t fully believe in themselves as much as others believed in them. On my end as a fan, I felt like that made those interactions awkward and even a little disappointing sometimes. So for the sake of making things less uncomfortable, even if I don’t feel confident in myself, I try to (within reason) allow people the space to find hope and motivation in the work I do. And of course, being humble is one thing! I’m talking more about people who belittle themselves when people support them. Belittling yourself inadvertently belittles the people that believe in you.

I think there’s also maybe a level of dissociation I feel sometimes in being an adult. As a kid there’s all these rules and structures and systems that grown-ups enforce … and then you sometimes grow up to become the adult or the reinforcer of systems. I feel like I hit a point in adulthood where I realized the world isn’t as tightly functioning as we’re taught to believe.

I try to be conscious of the systems I reinforce through my actions, and I’d argue that those systems include attitudes of imposter syndrome that especially folks in BIPOC communities and from low-income backgrounds internalize. It sets people back in a lot of ways, and I think there’s just too many obstacles in this world to allow myself to become one.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Through public art collaborations across Minnesota, I’m a multidisciplinary artist who uses art to uplift underrepresented narratives, explore the nuance of society’s historical community intersections, and promote community healing spaces – and I currently have a lot of irons in the fire!

On the gallery exhibition side of things, I’m working on a project with Carla Hamilton titled Waiting for Beds. The exhibit is currently at MCAD as part of the Jerome fellows group show in January and February, and will be moving to the Kruk Gallery at UW-Superior in March, followed by the Washburn Cultural Center in Washburn, WI in April. The exhibit features a large community embedded component alongside our work, where people submit objects and artwork connected to their time waiting for a bed to open up in crisis. It’s a heavy exhibit but it’s gaining a lot of traction and we’re hoping to keep building the momentum and exposing some of the injustice that lurks in systems intended to help people.

I have a few murals scheduled for Duluth and am finishing up a mural project with the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm, MN. I’m excited to be working with a wonderful up-and-coming artist Alexis Martinez, who’s a Bois Forte tribal member and taking the lead on some of the concept work for the project. The mural hopefully will be unveiled in the next month or two! Folks can subscribe to my newsletter to get occasional updates.
In the world of commissions, I’m working on illustrating a children’s book that looks at Ojibwe prescriptive fires, which is a subject that keeps coming back to me. I’m hoping to see this work released this year!

Finally, I’m launching a nonprofit called Aanjichigeng, which in Ojibwemowin translates loosely to “making change or transformation”. We’re not a 501c3 yet but the work stems from the Chief Buffalo Memorial project and all of the support we’ve received over the past 3 years. It feels important to have a “house” for this community work. My vision is not only to continue to expand and support programming at Gichi Ode Akiing and the Chief Buffalo Memorial, but also eventually to support the work of other Native American artists in the region. I’ve noticed a lot of other places in Minnesota have reliable “hubs” for Native artists and culture bearers, but Northeastern MN is a bit devoid of focused, arts-specific institutional support for Indigenous people – despite being home to tons of Indigenous creatives. Rather than compete with other orgs, I’m really just hoping to fill the gap and keep partnering with long-time supporters of Indigenous artists in the region.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Honestly I feel like I trick myself a lot and that’s been a skill for getting small things done! Like I’m always trying different ways of thinking that don’t come natural to me. As an example, sometimes I pretend to be my own assistant (since I don’t have an assistant yet!) – if I get an email that I feel anxious about responding to, or I’m worried about sending a price quote to someone, I’ll just write my response as if I was somebody else and click send. Like it’s my job to respond, basically.

I really related to the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once for this reason – I feel like I’m constantly trying to summon versions of myself that exist in other universes who have skills I didn’t get in this lifetime. So I suppose my advice is connected to that. We’re all incomplete versions of ourselves. There’s always room to grow and summon parts of ourselves we didn’t know existed. I pretend I’m somebody more assertive or straightforward in my emails, and by pretending I’m inadvertently practicing and proving to myself that I actually can respond differently. I practice this with small tasks because it’s often the small things that pile up fastest and get the most stressful, things like responding to people, writing a budget, updating a website or getting a concept sketch done. Until I get an assistant, I’ll keep wearing the assistant hat!

In that vein, I think my other advice is just be kind to yourself. It’s so easy to be self-destructive under the pressures of the society we’ve created. Value your work and your time and don’t accept people taking advantage of that! The faster you learn to help and protect yourself, the faster you can move on to helping others.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I don’t think either way is necessarily right or wrong. For me I’ve found it useful to allocate time improving on things that I’m not so strong at, especially if they’re hindering my ability to pursue the things I am good at. I think artists are greatly misunderstood in terms of what “being an artist” actually consists of. You can certainly be a successful artist without being a social butterfly or without knowing how to make a budget or write a grant – it may be a lot harder in some ways, but it’s not impossible. As I said earlier, we’re all pretty incomplete versions of ourselves, it can be pretty fun to branch out and develop different ways of existing.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Portrait photo by Richard Schabetsberger

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience is often the x-factor that differentiates between mild and wild success. The stories of

Productivity
Beating Burnout

Often the key to having massive impact is the ability to keep going when others

Leadership Development
Finding Your Why

Not knowing why you are going wherever it is that you are going sounds silly,